Court extra - A pair who dealt drugs in Kettering, a parole board decision and a Corby GBH ruling feature in today's court roundup

Here’s the first in a regular series of updates from local court cases from across North Northamptonshire.

A pair of drug dealers who pushed class-A drugs in Kettering have been sentenced.

Alfie Mason, of The Cape, Sark Way, Basingstoke, and Ashely Cameron, of Eastrop Way, Basingstoke, both aged 22, were both before Northampton Crown Court to be sentenced for being concerned in the supply of cocaine and possession of cannabis in Kettering on February 26, 2023.

The duo were given 21 months in prison, suspended for 18 months. But they will both be subject to a two-month electronically-monitored overnight curfew. They will also have to complete 30 rehabilitation activity days. £880 in cash that was found on them when they were caught by police has been forfeited and will be donated to the Northamptonshire Community Foundation.

The Parole Board has told a local long-term prisoner that he will not be released.

This newspaper is unable to name or identify the convict in any way after the High Court made an anonymity order, which will be challenged in the coming months.

But the man was before the parole board last week to apply for release, or a move to an open prison.

The panel that the risks to the public of his potential release were too great, and said his incarceration in closed conditions must continue.

A Higham Ferrers man accused of a series of serious domestic assaults has been bailed.

Ryan Kelsey, 44, of Celtic Close, was granted bail during a hearing at Northampton Crown Court. He is accused of two counts of assault occasioning actual bodily harm, coercive and controlling behaviour, a common assault and the stalking of a female victim. He denies all the accusations and is due to stand trial at the same court later this month.

Prosecutors have dropped a section 18 GBH charge against a Corby man.

Connor Godwin, 26, of Falmer Walk, had denied the allegation said to have happened on March 24 this year. But at a hearing at Northampton Crown Court the prosecution offered no evidence and the charge was dismissed. He was formally found not guilty by the court.

A man who waved a sword around in a park has been given a hospital order.

Ryan Nightingale, 32, was arrested after he waved a sword around in Spencer Park in Rushden, provoking an armed response.

He was then further charged with outraging public decency after he was caught masturbating in Rushden Asda. He had denied the charges against him but was found guilty following trials earlier this year.

Nightingale, of Peck House, Rushden, was back in court to be sentenced and the court heard in mitigation that he had mental health issues. He was not given a prison sentence, but instead was ordered to be admitted to St Andrew’s Hospital in Northampton. Hospital orders can only be issued to patients who would normally be given a custodial term, but who also have a diagnosed mental health condition for which two doctors believe they need to be treated in hospital.

A hospital order initially lasts for six months but it can be extended or renewed by a psychiatrist an unlimited number of times.

A thief has denied taking toys from family-favourite Osborne’s in Rushden.

Christopher Nast pleaded not guilty to stealing toys worth £210 in an incident in April.

The 42-year-old of no fixed abode will stand trial before magistrates.

Another assault at HMP Five Wells by a violent prisoner has been through the courts.

Kieren Latore, who was jailed in 2023 for a horrific attack on his mother, during which he slammed her head into the floor, was serving his two-year, six month sentence in HMP Five Wells.

But while in the Wellingborough prison, the 23-year-old, unprovoked, attacked a prison officer. He pleaded guilty in the magistrates’ court to assault by beating and was given an extra eight weeks on his sentence, which he is now serving at HMP Fosse Way in Leicester. Latore, formerly of Cambridgeshire, will also have to pay the officer £100 as well as costs of £85 and a £154 surcharge.